Alexis came to Zander's new room. She hugged him and then sat down.

"I feel like Pandora must have felt!" she said.

"You couldn't do anything else," he said to her. "I'll always be grateful. You saved my life again. I have no idea why, but you insist on helping me. You must be crazy, but I'll just say thank you, and, if I can ever do anything for you, just name it."

"I'm no crazier than you," she said, laughing. "One thing you could do for me; tell me what do you think about Sergei. He took an EKG as Monica wanted. We talked and he decided he'd stay long enough for you to decide if you want to talk to him or not. Totally up to you. No pressure. If you don't, he's going to stay in touch with me, so that you have the option to get in touch with him if you want."

"Do you think he's actually following these legal rules, or does he have some trick up his sleeve?"

"Before he came to my office, we had a conference call with his lawyer in Florida – who has advised him, since his release, of what can happen to him if he fails to follow the order. He's listened to that advice up to now. Monica wanted him to come up here, and I confirmed that with her. Then he came to my office. He wanted to hire me to help him to steer clear, and stay out of trouble with the no contact orders on both you and Peter. So when we ran into each other," she grimaced, "it was just as I said. I was trying to keep him clear of everybody, and that was just an accident. You saw what he did with Peter, right? He didn't try to talk him into anything."

"Yes. He said nothing to Oksana, too, which he must have had a hard time resisting. But I'm just afraid to believe him. You saw how Pete was, too. If he gets Pete to go off with him, that's even more upheaval to Pete. She's already – Oksana is already moving him up here. She couldn't just go back to Florida! Not her! She could have done all this without coming up here. But now she's done with it all, and she could go back and take Pete back. She's wasting her time and just changing Pete's school and his whole life for no reason."

"It could be she's moving him so he'll be near you."

"He doesn't need to be near me. He needs to be where he's been for the past four years. Look, Alexis, I know it was wrong to put him through not knowing where I was. I just didn't think of all that at the time. Now that problem is solved. He knows where I am and he can call me any time."

"It's not the same. Leave it up to him. And Oksana could never had found out where you were without coming to see you. I get that, and I'm not even a mother."

"Not yet, anyway."

Alexis smiled. She reached over and smoothed his hair off of his forehead. "I don't think Sergei wants to take Peter away."

"If he leaves the country, none of that legal stuff matters."

"Now he knows he'd be arrested on his return, so he'd be exiled. And Pete could just up and leave him again. He wouldn't see you at all that way. He's a guy who can figure out what risks are worth taking most of the time. The wrong ones end in disaster sometimes, but he doesn't always make the wrong decision. Like someone else I know. Look at it this way – he can't have sway over both his sons or get his relationship back to normal with both in the foreseeable future. He only has the option of doing that one at a time, you first. Which one imposes the least risk on him? No exile from America? No jail time? You."

"I suppose."

"How about he stays another week or so? That gives you a little time to see if you want to talk to him while he's here."

Zander looked down. "OK," he sighed.